“Hold,” said he, “let it go to Rome; let them see what kind of looking fellow I am.  Perhaps the prince and his friends may form as good an opinion of me from my face as you have done.”

This was said sportively, yet it was evident there was vanity lurking at the bottom.  Even this wary, distrustful chief of banditti forgot for a moment his usual foresight and precaution in the common wish to be admired.  He never reflected what use might be made of this portrait in his pursuit and conviction.

The letter was folded and directed, and the messenger departed again For Tusculum.  It was now eleven o’clock in the morning, and as yet we had eaten nothing.  In spite of all my anxiety, I began to feel a craving appetite.  I was glad, therefore, to hear the captain talk something of eating.  He observed that for three days and nights they had been lurking about among rocks and woods, meditating their expedition to Tusculum, during which all their provisions had been exhausted.  He should now take measures to procure a supply.  Leaving me, therefore, in the charge of his comrade, in whom he appeared to have implicit confidence, he departed, assuring me, that in less than two hours we should make a good dinner.  Where it was to come from was an enigma to me, though it was evident these beings had their secret friends and agents throughout the country.

Indeed, the inhabitants of these mountains and of the valleys which they embosom are a rude, half civilized set.  The towns and villages among the forests of the Abruzzi, shut up from the rest of the world, are almost like savage dens.  It is wonderful that such rude abodes, so little known and visited, should be embosomed in the midst of one of the most travelled and civilized countries of Europe.  Among these regions the robber prowls unmolested; not a mountaineer hesitates to give him secret harbor and assistance.  The shepherds, however, who tend their flocks among the mountains, are the favorite emissaries of the robbers, when they would send messages down to the valleys either for ransom or supplies.  The shepherds of the Abruzzi are as wild as the scenes they frequent.  They are clad in a rude garb of black or brown sheep-skin; they have high conical hats, and coarse sandals of cloth bound round their legs with thongs, similar to those worn by the robbers.  They carry long staffs, on which as they lean they form picturesque objects in the lonely landscape, and they are followed by their ever-constant companion, the dog.  They are a curious, questioning set, glad at any time to relieve the monotony of their solitude by the conversation of the passerby, and the dog will lend an attentive ear, and put on as sagacious and inquisitive a look as his master.